


The Longest Night Will Have an End

by torrentialTriages



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: A Much-Referenced Passion For Sharks, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Please Help Sharks, apologies to kimball fans, brief mentions of insurrectionists too, group projects, price and kimball are minor appearances the tags keep fucking up, whats better than this guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix, Locus, and Sharkface get paired up for quite possibly the most soul-draining Geography assignment a student can experience. Minor but memorable Hell experiences ensue.</p>
<p>Also known as that time Felix learns more about sharks than he ever wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Longest Night Will Have an End

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Toadflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toadflame/pseuds/Toadflame) in the [RvB_Fic_War](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/RvB_Fic_War) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
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>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Listen up! Your team's just been assigned someone new, and they have information that is just the thing to end this war! What? No, they're undercover, they're just WEARING the other team's armor, they're on our side!
> 
> Yes, I'm sure! What do you mean they have a weapon at the back of my head?
> 
> **Prompt:** Write a fic about a friend turned enemy, or enemy turned friend.
> 
> i went through this shit just last year and i would like to extend sympathy to anyone who has ever done the same and hated it. i dont like geography and i really didnt like this assignment (i picked deforestation). the memory of assembling that was why i picked a quote from kotaro uchikoshi in re: ze3 for the title so. if it looks like it doesnt fit, it was a really long night. its been a really long night i need to stop talking
> 
> insurrectionist leader = ignatius, girlie = annika, demo = mick, sniper = cameron, sleeveless = aiden, chain guy = finn, chain girl = tess. have fun. huge thanks to my beta letrickster!!

The Grade 10 Geography class of room 57, led by a Mr. Aiden Price, was not very fond of teamwork. Yet they didn't complain as they were assigned their groups of three people for the term project, students shuffling across the room and pulling up chairs to meet with their partners as they discussed how to pull this assignment, a documentary on a modern issue related to Geography in any way, off. Eventually, a certain three students were left ungrouped.

"And, let's see..." Mr. Price shuffles his papers. "Felix, Locus, I suppose you'll have to work with... Terrence. Is that alright?"

Felix frowns, leaning back in his seat at a precarious angle, sneakers propped up on his desk. "Who the f-heck is Terrence?"

"That's me," a deep voice drawls, and Locus and Felix turn to look at a Chinese boy, tall, stocky, the right half of his face covered by an angry series of burns, hunched defensively over his desk, hand raised casually as he stares down the duo with a mild sneer. When they have both turned to stare openly, he tilts his head and lazily salutes with the raised hand. "Terrence Zheng, at your service," he bites, in a sarcastic tone.

"Yes, um." Mr. Price marks down something on his papers. "Now, seeing as the three of you are the only ones not grouped up, I trust that you will all work together well, gentlemen." He smiles softly, but the sight makes Felix's hackles tingle for some inexplicable reason. "I have faith that you will be able to work together. Now please, get started."

"Wait. You're telling me," Felix gripes, to no one in particular, as Mr. Price turns to other matters, "That we have to work with _him_?"

The Chinese boy folds his arms over his chest, as do Felix and Locus, and the unburnt side of his face is slack in an unimpressed glare except for the furrowed eyebrow. "You got a problem?" Locus walks past Felix to lean on the empty desk in front of Terrence, ready to intervene if Felix got too antagonistic for anyone to stay calm.

Felix considers it, then shrugs. "We'll probably suck ass, so unless you're some kinda wonder at bullshitting, I'm prepared to take that kinda fall."

Locus exhales thinly through his nose. Felix nods towards his... friend. Enemy? Frenemy? "Okay, so I'm not because Locus the grades freak is gonna make sure we fancy this up so well it's gonna send us to the Academy Awards."

There is a brief silence. Terrence and Locus let their gazes wander obviously.

"What do we even pretend to care about, anyway?" Felix whines, walking over and sliding onto a nearby desk, and Locus snorts, attempting to blow a dread out of his face.

"Marine life," is Terrence's prompt reply. He straightens up in his seat, clasping his hands together. Oh, shit, he's dead serious, Felix realizes with a dawning sense of dread. "Sharks. I like sharks, and it's a real issue."

"I can respect sharks," Locus muses, examining his nails. Felix snorts.

"Whoop de do, sharks. Okay. So you handle the 'why we should care', Locus can make this look like we have an idea of what we're doing, and I can be the cool narrator who obviously cares about the plight of the poor sharks."

Terrence narrows his eyes, and Felix knows the guy's pissed off, but he does not let the self-satisfied smirk slip off his face.

"No," says Locus, and Felix drops the smile faster than white-hot metal. "You put in your share of research. You help with the editing and the camera. We're going to be graded individually _and_ as a group. I'm not paying because you decided to slack off."

Felix presses his lips together so tightly they whiten, and Terrence raises his eyebrow at Locus, the assholes looking smug and impassive respectively. Then, "Fuck, guess I gotta pretend a little longer, huh."

\--

The research part takes three classes to complete, thanks to Locus' taskdriving and Terrence's zealous overtime work, so they start on the documentary script. Nothing remarkable happens during those classes, apart from Felix's snarky comments and Terrence's willingness to brawl resulting in several tussles in the library, multiple rotating bookstands being knocked over, Locus yelling, and a very pissed librarian. Felix learns more about sharks than he ever wanted.

It shapes up to be a very long and very boring process for Felix. Interspersed with fighting, but still emotionally numbing. 

He starts thinking that Price assigned this project specifically to make Felix an unquestioning unfeeling academic machine of a student. It makes him grit his teeth, and he turns to ask a stupid question to Locus and Terrence, and Terrence gets up and wrestles Felix out of his seat, which takes his mind off the boredom for a few minutes.

The week drags on.

\--

"What do you think of Sharky?" Felix muses a week later as he sits cross-legged on Locus' bed, peering over his shoulder as he swirls Coke in a can around.

Locus' attic bedroom is austere and unforgiving despite the vibrancy of the black-painted wood and his mussed forest green covers. What items are lying around have likely been neatly placed there, as in the case of the hamper lined with loosely folded dirty clothes.

"... Sharky." Locus sits on the floor against the bed, working on the script for the documentary.

"Terrence, you know, because he's so obsessed with sharks. Might as well be one himself."

Locus shrugs. Starts on the script where they left off a few hours ago. 

"He's a weird kid." Felix reclines on Locus' bed and knocks back the rest of his Coke. "'S kinda growing on me, though. God."

"Hmm." Locus' fingers patter across the keyboard, and he pauses, squints, then sets about revising an earlier passage in the script. "He's tolerable." A few more seconds of typing. "You're more comfortable with him than I am. Unsurprising." His tone is factual.

"Yeah, yeah." Felix's tone is companionable. He gestures to the screen with his half-full can. "Maybe add some adjectives there."

"Add them yourself. You have a phone."

Felix wrinkles his nose. "Nahhhh."

"Then use the desktop downstairs." Locus tucks a dread behind his ear and pauses, looking up at Felix flatly. "Tell Terrence we need to stay after school to do some extra planning."

"Ugh, fine." Felix shimmies his phone out of his pants pocket, flipping through his contacts and letting the phone dial. Then he presses it to his ear.

"Sharky?" Locus returns to pursing his lips at the screen, doing a slow methodical sweep of the script so far that searches for errors. "Heh, yeah. Listen, Locus wants us to stay after school for the project." Locus hears Felix shift on his bed. "Mmyep. Uh huh." Muffled yelling from Terrence. "Chyeah. Just tell that to the asshole. Anyway. Be there, and all that shit. Bye."

Locus sighs. "Felix."

"Mmyeah?"

Locus stretches out his legs and picks up the laptop, carrying it over his head to deposit by Felix's side. "Make it fancy."

Felix chortles exaggeratedly, rubbing his palms together. "Time to give Price's bullshitometers a run for his money."

\--

The final revision of the script only takes up seventeen minutes after school lets out, after which their hour and thirteen minutes left are spent filming minor bits that were deemed setting-independent at the very beginning and shooting the shit in between takes, mostly on Felix and Terrence's parts, interspersed with Locus' no-nonsense time management lectures. At one point they run through the school and grab a few straggling students and teachers to add "realistic commentary on the crisis", which just means asking a pre-written question, shoving a phone camera in their face, and letting the good times roll.

After packing up, Felix calls someone named Kimball to pick them up as they stroll out of the school and set up shop on the front steps of the school to wait for their ride.

"I'm bored," Felix whines after a solid five minutes. It was an impressive amount of time to hold out, in his mind. "Sharky, you got any good stories, shit you've done, people you've wronged or whatever bullshit, whatever? Anything?"

Terrence snorts in amusement and shakes his head, hair rustling with the movement, glowing with the sunset light. "You're kinda out of luck there, but, here, let- let me show you my old school friends." He pulls out his phone from his hoodie pocket, flicking his wrist to easily swivel it right-side-up in his loose-fingered grasp, bringing out his other hand to tap in his passcode. Felix and Locus watch on in bated silence as he scrolls until he finds the pictures he wants, leaning in to see the people on the screen.

First is a screenshot of a Snapchat. In it is a short stocky white boy with a mohawk sitting in front of a brown suede couch, surrounded by a blonde girl wearing a peach tank top with a heart on it and a stony glare and a Middle Eastern-looking boy with red hair tips and a septum piercing. _Game night_ , reads the caption. "There's Ven, Annika, and Mick," Terrence points out respectively.

"Ven," Felix says flatly, skeptical.

Terrence barks, a short laugh that makes Locus' fingers twitch. "Long story, he fucked up pronouncing his name once. His real name's Ignatius Darwin. Fuckin' sucks, yeah. But Ven's better than fuckin' _Darwin_ , let alone Ignatius, right?"

"Mm." Locus taps his fingers on the cool concrete. Felix snorts and waves a hand impatiently, lit up by the golden glow of the setting sun.

"Yeah, anyway." Terrence flicks to the next picture. "Here's Cameron." He points at the lanky shirtless russet-curled boy windmilling his arms at a skate park, one that Locus and Felix recognize as a frequently-frequented one halfway across the city. "He's deadly in a paintball game, or lazer tag, or- just about anything involving aim, he's the shit."

Felix mutters something that sounds suspiciously like "can he piss in a straight line" under his breath. Sharky nudges him in the ribs, which seems to be a jesting poke, then continues.

The next one is a selfie of him, unburnt, younger, messier, happier, with a short solid Asian boy with scarlet hair and distinct arm muscles. Terrence is holding the phone. The mystery boy is flashing the peace sign, and his other hand is placed upon his bicep as he gives the camera a dry smirk. Felix whistles appreciatively. Locus scowls at him.

"This is Aiden," Terrence informs them. "He, uh, he had to transfer before me, he got into a fight with this really tall muscly senior and hurt the guy pretty bad. Hospitalization shit." Felix does a repeat whistle. Locus' scowl deepens.

"We should-" he begins. Terrence's free hand lifts out of his lap to make a "stop" motion.

"Just one more." He flicks several pictures forward until he stops at a darker picture, a party, apparently, with fairy lights, and there is the ignominiously-named Ignatius, with his budding moustache that fails to thrive and sporting a tuxedo, caught glancing at something off to the side as two nearly-identical lean brown-skinned bleach-blond teenagers appear to catch and steady him, their genders indistinct, in matching purple suits and wearing lapel pins (the boy (?), a button of a yellow smiley face, the girl (?), a button of a sad yellow face). They appear to be sharing some private joke under Ignatius' chin, the one on the right grinning widely, the one on the left appearing chastising and angry. "That's Tess, Ven, and that's Finn," Terrence points out, left to right. "Finn and Tess are twins, they're adopted."

"Huh." Felix snort-sniffles loudly, rubbing his nose and then at his arms, glancing over at the end of the road. "That must be some weird shit, I wonder what family portraits look like." He snorts humorlessly. "I haven't had one in a few years."

Terrence shrugs jerkily, almost subconsciously, as if to defensively chase away the disbelief Felix expresses against his friends and the unease creeping into Felix's voice.

They all wait some more as Terrence shows them more pictures, shadows lengthening, the chill of spring nights growing stronger, then Felix's head snaps back up as a car pulls up at the steps. "Vanessa's here."

Vanessa Kimball, the daughter of an old family friend of Felix's family and practically an older sister to him, pulls up in front of the school steps in a small tan car with blue stripes painted on, lowering the window to watch Felix scramble for his stuff with an amused expression similar to his own everyday smirk. "Hey. Let's go."

Felix sticks his tongue out at her as Locus and Terrence shoulder their backpacks and trudge down the stairs. Felix grabs the last of his scattered school items and clatters down the school steps after the two, bypassing them and jumping down the steps to yank at the passenger door and bodily toss his school stuff on the seat, indicating that Terrence and Locus should do similarly. Terrence follows Felix, but Locus insists on sliding into the backseat, choosing the driver's side, with his backpack resting primly on his lap. Felix actually jumps into the car, scootching next to an affronted Locus, and Terrence clambers heavily in, nodding to Kimball as he shuts the door.

"How was your day?" Kimball asks mechanically, as if her mind is somewhere else as she pulls out of the parking lot.

"Bullshit," Felix declares. "School's total bullshit and I was bored out of my skull." He adds, as an afterthought, "The project's ready to get put together, though." 

"That's good," she replies, in a genuinely interested tone. "Oh yeah, your parents called. Said they won't be back for another week."

Felix slumps, folding his arms over his chest. "That's fine." His tone is airy, but his eyes dull with resentment and Vanessa's eyebrows in the rear mirror crease together in an expression of sympathy. The conversation drops after that, and Felix engages Terrence in a heated game of footsie that has Locus pinning Felix's other foot down and shooting him a frosty glare. Terrence takes the opportunity to also capture Felix's foot under his.

Felix snickers. "Assholes. Get off my feet." They do not. "Fine, be that way." They stay that way for the rest of the ride.

\--

Kimball drops them off at Felix's house, a small cocoa-roofed two-story affair, and Felix salutes her, the two others nod and thank her, and they clatter into the house. Felix does not bother to yell an announcement of arrival. Instead, he turns to Terrence and Locus, and tells them proudly, "Welcome to _chez_ Choi, dipshits."

They pass pictures of Felix in the hallway, of him and his parents. But the pictures are mostly of when he was younger, and his parents look less genuinely happy with both each other and their son, they press less together in their pictures as Felix grows older, starts looking wilder and less cheerfully compliant.

The kitchen is cluttered, and Locus wrinkles his nose at the large bag of Doritos lying on the counter, but says nothing.

Felix leads them to a wooden table just outside the kitchen, set with six chairs. Locus sets his backpack down at the foot of the kitchen counter, and Terrence dumps his backpack gracelessly next to Locus', padding over to where Felix sits at the table, tracing a finger over the handle of a throwing knife embedded in the table. Locus kneels to unzip his backpack, and takes out his laptop to carry over to Terrence and Felix. He sits in a chair perpendicular to them, Felix once again in the middle, and opens the laptop. 

"We just need a bunch of stock images and free music, right?" Felix asks, tilting his head from side to side as he scootches closer to the table, bringing the laptop closer to himself.

"Eyup." Terrence pops the last letter as he cracks his knuckles. "Let's get started."

\--

Felix thought searching for photos and found footage of sharks online was impossible to derail with screaming and opinions on food. It takes two hours and a roundhouse swing to the gut because Terrence got heated over the existence of shark fin soup to prove him wrong.

Importing everything to Movie Maker is eventless, and Felix and his throbbing stomach are thankful for that. He hands the editing and the laptop over to Terrence, and Locus leans over to offer suggestions. Felix, not to be outdone, picks out parts where the documentary could benefit from special effects, the insertion of which he only bungles twice due to his unfamiliarity with this particular editing program, thank you very much, _Mr. Locus "I replaced the stick up my ass with the tech I got from selling my soul to Apple" Almeida_.

After a long eternity spent endlessly reviewing the incomplete film, interspersed by Locus and Terrence phoning their guardians to tell them they'd most likely be staying late if not all night, Terrence leans back in his chair, placing his palms over his eyes as he exhales deeply. Felix stretches, back cracking, and voices the requisite groan. Locus spares a glance at the clock. 10:42 PM. He rubs his eyes wearily.

None of them move, especially not to return to editing.

"Hey," says Felix hoarsely. His partners grunt in reply. "You think the diner down the street is open at midnight? Trick question, it always is. Let's get milkshakes when this is over."

"It's Tuesday," Locus begins, but Felix has already pulled the laptop towards himself again. "Felix, you're lactose intolerant."

"We're getting milkshakes when we fuckin' finish," he insists, voice gaining strength. "We deserve it." And that was that. 

The rest of editing and Felix, Terrence, and Locus' voiceovers take until 11:27 PM. When they finish, they take a moment. They sit and look at each other with sleep-deadened awestruck eyes in the humming silence, proud of their accomplishments and completely done with the project and anything associated with it. Then Felix closes the laptop, pushes it to the middle of the table, and immediately gets to his feet, stretching the cricks in his neck out. "Milkshake time."

The other two boys are very much inclined to agree.

\--

In the end, they get a collective A and Felix whoops, Sharky gets out of his seat to fistbump Felix, and Locus allows them both a nod.

Next year they ask to be put in the same groups together.


End file.
